Evangelicals are helping Falun Gong, the Chinese religious movement, which seeks to save the world with its mix of Taoism and Buddhism while creating “the world’s largest and most authoritative media.”
The Epoch Times, Falun Gong’s nonprofit media outlet, has become a trusted source for conservatives and is now the fourth-largest newspaper in America, according to its own unverified subscription numbers. It reportedly reaches a larger audience than other conservative outlets, including Newsmax and The Daily Caller.
The Epoch Times grew its revenue by 685% over two years to $122 million, according to the article, “How the Conspiracy-fueled Epoch Times Went Mainstream and Made Millions,” a 3,000-word profile published recently by NBC News.
Conservative evangelicals are doing their part to help grow The Epoch Times, which sponsored a forum at May’s annual gathering of the National Religious Broadcasters. NRB calls itself “the world’s largest association of Christian communicators.”
NRB did not tell its attendees that The Epoch Times is affiliated with Falun Gong as it promoted a special NRB forum featuring “Gender Transformation — The Untold Realities,” an EpochTV documentary that condemns “the societal and political mechanisms at work” in the “transgender movement.”
The NRB forum featured Jeff Myers, president of Summit Ministries, which typically exposes “non-Christian worldviews,” and Lucas Miles, who is contributor to both The Epoch Times and The Christian Post, which is owned by another Asian messianic figure, South Korean pastor David Jang, who also seeks to promote his movement through media properties.
NRB declined to answer questions about its partnership with Falun Gong or explain why it is promoting a non-Christian religious group that is not eligible for NRB membership. (NRB does not make its membership list publicly available or answer questions about who is or isn’t a member.)
Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, emerged in China in 1992, promoting meditation and dance movements and promising followers they could use supernatural powers to combat illness and achieve eternal youth.
The group’s “master” is Mr. Li, a mysterious and secretive figure who avoids the public spotlight and teaches a variety of extra-biblical doctrines, including the claim that aliens from other planets are trying to replace humans on earth.
China banned the group in 1999 and sought to eradicate it by sending some of its leaders to prisons and mental institutions. The group launched The Epoch Times as a Chinese-language newspaper in New York in 2000, using unpaid volunteers as journalists and focusing on its protests against China’s government.
The Falun Gong movement has annual income of around a quarter billion dollars and includes the touring dance troupe Shen Yun, which advertises its shows as “China before Communism.”
Evangelical groups that work with Falun Gong-related groups don’t spell out its many significant deviations from Christian teaching, but the Gospel Coalition did so in an August article, “9 Things You Should Know About Falun Gong and ‘The Epoch Times.’” Among the concerns cited were its theology and journalistic practices:
- “Falun Gong’s leader believes he’s a messianic and divine figure.”
- “Falun Gong teaches that racial groups were created by various divine beings — and that mixed races are ‘pitiable.’”
- “Falun Gong’s media outlet has been described as a ‘global-scale misinformation machine.’”
NRB promotional material praised The Epoch Times’ style of journalism, saying it is “a media company that is dedicated to seeking the truth through insightful and independent journalism, standing outside of political interests, and the pursuit of profit, in order to serve the public benefit and be truly responsible to society.”
The Epoch Times took a pro-Trump turn in 2016 and has since been endorsed by ultra-conservative leaders including Steve Bannon and Glenn Beck.
The outlet follows a conservative playbook with articles and video reports including:
- “The Unseen Crisis: Vaccine Stories You Were Never Told”
- “Meteorologists, Scientists Explain Why There Is ‘No Climate Emergency”
- “The Final War: The 100-Year Plot to Defeat America”
- “The Real Story of January 6”
- “Why Falun Gong Matters”
- “Focus on the Family’s Jim Daly on the Importance of Family, Marriage and Having Children”
- Dozens of stories claiming voting machines were used to rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election
- And more than 90 articles promoting “2000 Mules,” the debunked Dinesh D’Souza movie that makes claims of widespread 2020 election fraud.
In 2018, Master Li told attendees at a Falun Gong conference that “constructive” coverage of Trump made sense because Trump’s views were aligned with Li’s.
“If someone comes along now who can help to halt the downward spiral that the world is in, then he is truly someone extraordinary!” said Li, according to NBC. “He would in effect be helping us! Wouldn’t he be helping us to save people?”
